


The Aimless One

by sarkywoman



Category: Misfits (TV 2009)
Genre: Angst, Immortality, Mortality, Multi, Nathan Young Being Nathan Young
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 10:35:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20113717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkywoman/pseuds/sarkywoman
Summary: “Oh, he’ll die eventually,” Alisha says. “Let’s be real. He ain’t gonna just go on kicking forever and ever and ever and ever. This isn’t some Lord of the Rings elf bullshit. Time has meaning and stuff.”For the 'Isolation' square at badthingshappenbingo. Nathan lives a long life, but loses the bit that was worth living.





	The Aimless One

**Author's Note:**

> Compliant with season one only. It's so typical of me to join a fandom that makes me cackle with laughter and proceed to write the saddest thing I've ever written.

The Aimless One

One day while Nathan’s talking about something incredibly important (he’s saying it, which makes it important, thanks), Simon has the audacity to interrupt.

“You should be paying attention to this.”

“To what?”

Nathan slides his pert bottom off of Simon’s desk and moves around behind him to lean over his shoulder. Simon’s often on his computer. It’s what he does when he’s not with them in their blissful polyamorous domestic arrangement, just as Curtis works out in the garage or Alisha practises one of her various beauty treatments.

“I told you, I’m making another fake ID.” Simon says that with a little frustration, as if Nathan should have known it just because he’d been told it.

“Oh. Cool. Our clever little deviant. We’re still missing someone who can steal cars though.”

Simon sighs. “You’ll probably need more of these than anyone.”

“Come on, I don’t get into _that_ much trouble.” Simon looks at him in disbelief. Nathan relents. “Okay, I am a little unlucky in that regard. Trouble tends to follow me around through _no fault of my own_.”

“That’s not what I mean. Though I suppose that’s a valid point as well. I just meant that you’ll be around longer. You know? Over time you’ll probably need to falsify new credentials. How to do that will change, obviously, but it’s important to know where to start and then keep on top of the government changes to licenses and stuff.”

Wrinkling his nose, Nathan hops back up to sit on the desk. “I’ve got you for all that, Barry.”

Simon blinks those pretty serial killer eyes at him. “Well… not forever.”

“You’re leaving us?” Nathan clasps a hand to his chest in shock.

“What? No!”

“Good. We’re not ditching you either, you dumb bastard. You’ve got us for good. I mean, we’re basically all married. Would be, if it weren’t illegal.”

“Right. But…” Simon shakes his head a little. “Okay. Fine.”

Leaning over, Nathan plants a kiss on Simon’s clammy forehead. “Stuck with us forever, Barry.”

It doesn’t seem to cheer the solemn sod up at all.

*

“Doesn’t it bother him?” Curtis asks, throwing an arm along the back of the sofa.

Alisha cuddles up to him. “Don’t think he thinks about it.”

“He’ll have to one day,” Simon says quietly. He runs his fingers through Kelly’s hair as she sits on the floor by the sofa watching TV. He likes how she lets it down in the evenings.

“Not yet though,” she replies. “We’re all still young. He’s got time.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Curtis sips his beer before continuing. “He’s got all the time in the world.”

“Alright for some,” Alisha says, a little jealous.

“Is it though?” He asks. “We don’t ask him to get a job because we know he’d fuck it up. He does bits around the house – badly. We basically let him be a decoration around here.”

“He likes that though,” Kelly says. They all like it, if they’re honest. It’s like having a pet.

“But is it good for him?” Curtis asks. “Like, long-term. And I don’t just mean long-term, I mean...” He trails off.

“Eternally,” Simon says, voice barely above a whisper.

“Oh, he’ll die eventually,” Alisha says. “Let’s be real. He ain’t gonna just go on kicking forever and ever and ever and ever. This isn’t some Lord of the Rings elf bullshit. Time has meaning and stuff.”

“I suppose we’ll find out,” Simon says. Then after a few moments, “or we won’t. I mean, it could be that--”

“Let’s stop talking about it, yeah?” Kelly asks sharply.

Simon’s hands pause for a moment, his fingers still in the blonde river of her hair. Then he swallows and nods, though she can’t see him from her angle. “Sorry.” He carries on stroking her, trying to be soothing.

They’re distracted from the morbid conversation when Nathan bursts in five minutes later telling them gleefully about some lad he saw down the park trying to somersault into a bin.

“--so there they are trying to wrench a swing off the frame to fish him out of the river...”

Nathan’s _good_ at distractions.

Too good.

*

They don’t go out clubbing as much as they used to, much to Nathan’s frustration. They’ve always got work in the morning, or they’re too tired, or there’s something on the telly.

He doesn’t mind chilling out at home, but it’d be good to have a dance and a drink and a dalliance with some drugs at a weekend. They keep fobbing him off. 

Eventually after much whining and wheedling he manages to get Curtis to go out with him. Well, Alisha does. “Indulge him, won’t you? Might shut him up.”

Curtis doesn’t join in the pre-drinks really, just nurses a beer while Nathan does his shots. “You’re gonna be too wasted to get in,” Curtis says at one point.

He’s wrong, though Nathan does get asked for ID, which is ridiculous. “M’almost thirty mate, come on!”

The music’s pretty good, though he doesn’t recognise as much as he used to. He manages to get Curtis to dance a little, but not for long. Eventually Nathan gets bored of trying to coax him out of his seat in the booth and dances with some other people instead while Curtis plays on his phone. 

And he maybe dances a _little_ close with a handsome chap with a rugby build to him. Nathan doesn’t think he’s pushing it really until the guy’s dancing him up to the wall, at which point Curtis appears and pushes the guy away. 

“Fuck off old man,” says the guy.

“Old?!” Nathan echoes. It’s not _that_ dark in the club. Curtis is… okay, he’s probably older than most of the students and stuff in the club, but…

“We’re leaving,” Curtis tells Nathan, basically dragging him out of the club. 

“What a wanker that guy was,” Nathan says in solidarity, once they’re out in the cool night air.

“They all are,” Curtis grumbles. “Entitled kids.”

“Oh come on, we’re not _that_ old yet,” Nathan laughs.

But Curtis doesn’t laugh. He bundles Nathan into a taxi, lets him cuddle up and gets him home in one piece.

Doesn’t take him to a club again, though. 

*

Maybe eight bottles is too many, Kelly thinks as she watches Nathan loading up his skinny arms with bags of shopping. 

“Maybe we should put three bottles back?” She asks. “Get one each?”

“Curtis barely drinks anyway,” Nathan argues. “So it’s more like we’ve got two each and honestly, I’m okay with that.”

“Having a party?” The cashier asks cheerfully. 

“Nah,” Kelly grins. “Just keeping ourselves busy of an evening.”

The cashier smiles, barely looking old enough to sell alcohol themselves. They look to Nathan. “Wish my mum was this cool.”

Nathan looks utterly perplexed, hazel eyes going wide. “She’s not my mum, she’s--”

“Auntie,” Kelly says quickly, taking the receipt that the cashier hands her.

“Ah, that makes sense. Gotta have a cool auntie!”

Kelly shoves her receipt in her pocket, tells the cashier to “have a good one”, then steers Nathan out of the shop before he can say anything else. He still looks completely bewildered once they’re partly down the street, not even complaining about the weight of the bags.

“Why the _fuck_ would he think you’re my mum? We’re the same age! Was he mental? Was he working there as part of a government scheme?”

“You don’t exactly look your age, Nathan,” she reminds him.

“Well who does, really?”

“I do,” Kelly points out.

“Hey now, none of that. You don’t look a day over thirty.”

She huffs. “I bloody do. And you barely look a day over twenty-one, so...”

“It’s just my hair,” he says, waggling his head a little to make it bounce. “It makes me youthful.”

“No Nathan, it’s your immortality. Makes you stop agein’.”

He frowns and, uncharacteristically, goes quiet for the rest of the walk home. Is that all it took to get the idea through his skull? A frank statement? They’ve been tiptoeing around it for years now.

She’s holding her breath as they get home to the others, waiting to see what Nathan wants to do next. What he wants to think about, now that he’s realising the scope of his situation.

Putting the bags down in the living room, he stands in front of the telly and says loudly, “you will not _believe_ what the stupid wanker in the shop just said to our Kelly. Blind as a bat! He thought she was my mum!”

The only reaction she can manage is an awkward smile. Just like everyone else.

Nathan grabs the bags again, chuckling his way off to the kitchen. “What an idiot...”

*

“Babe, can I borrow you?”

Nathan can never say no to Alisha. For a while that was literal, back before she had full control of her powers. Oh what fun times they had. Still do, when the fancy takes her and she lets a brush of her fingertips light up every horny signal in his brain. 

They do that less these days. They’re all so busy all the time with their jobs and stuff, then when they have time they’re always tired. Never too tired for Nathan’s mouth, but sometimes too tired to go all-out perverted and wild with him, which is a shame. 

Alisha still works in make-up artistry, which she took up after she stopped modelling. That was a while ago probably. The years all sort of run together. Nathan doesn’t really keep track of their work bullshit. Simon does something with computers and money. Kelly’s a store manager with her fake psychic thing on the side, or has she stopped doing that now? She always felt bad lying to people. Curtis works as a coach or, damn, is he still doing the physio? Both maybe?

He sits still and chats while Alisha practises new looks on him. They’ve been watching a new crime drama lately that features superpowered characters and they both have wildly different theories on who it will turn out to be. 

“Of course Barry thinks that Mohan’s a red herring and that it’ll turn out to be Emilia.”

“Well what would he know, he doesn’t fuckin’ watch it,” Alisha says. “Just whines endlessly about me and you watching it.”

“He’s just jealous because he wants in on our sofa snuggling. That’s all it is.”

She laughs. “You’re probably right. He does get mopey when he’s left out.” She sits back and examines his face. “There. Lookin’ gorgeous, gorgeous!”

His reflection is a very stylish young man. “Ooh, is smokey eye back in?”

“Smokey eye’s always in if you know what you’re doing.”

“And you certainly do,” Nathan says, admiring his slightly darkened pout and the hints of contour. He does a ‘blue steel’ pout. “You won’t even need a make-up artist when you go back to modelling, you can just do your own.”

“I won’t be going back to modelling,” Alisha laughs. 

“Why not? It was a good career, wasn’t it? I mean yes, there was all that faff with the coke addiction, but we got you through that. You’re better now.”

“It was also fifteen years ago,” Alisha says, something in her expression and voice that Nathan doesn’t like very much. 

“You don’t need to talk so slow and gentle, I’m not a nutter. Just saying, you’ve still got the looks.”

“Aww, baby boy, I really haven’t. But you’re sweet to say it.”

“But you have!” Nathan takes hold of her wrist as she starts putting cosmetics away. “You’re beautiful. Always have been. You’ve got that x factor.”

“What I’ve got is wrinkles,” she says.

When he looks he can see them, actually. Weird. Little crinkles at the edge of her eyes, lines going down either side of her nose to the corners of her mouth. He’s never really looked at that stuff before. He peers in the mirror. “Funny how time catches up with ya. I don’t think I’ve got any yet. Thought I had a grey pube the other day, but turned out to be a false alarm. Kelly had been down there and left one of hers.”

“Lovely,” Alisha says, wrinkling up her nose. “You don’t have any wrinkles though. I don’t think you’ll get any.”

“Good genes,” Nathan says, nodding. “Though my mum’s looking a bit rough around the edges these days. Did I tell you she wants me to go round more often?”

“Yeah, you did.”

Nathan watches her potter about putting everything in its place. “Bit strange, isn’t it, given how we fell out after Kelly hit her that time.”

“Again, years ago. She’s at the time of life she wants to make things right with her son. She probably regrets how she was when you moved in with us all.”

“Hey, what’s this ‘all’? I moved in with Kelly and you all followed like lemmings.”

Alisha chuckles. “Guess so. Worked out alright though, didn’t it?”

“Are you kidding? It’s working out fantastic. It’s like having two sugar daddies and two sugar mamas.” He goes in for a cheeky squeeze of her thigh through the skirt and she swats him playfully.

“Perks of being an immortal twink, I suppose,” Alisha says, smiling. “Least with these make-up tricks you’ll be able to pick up some more doting dates when we’re gone.”

“Where are you going?” Nathan asks.

He doesn’t like the way her smile drops away or the serious look as she searches his expression. Eventually she says, “kitchen. You want anything?”

“Ooh, maybe.”

She fits under his arm as sweetly as ever as they head downstairs. They may as well be strolling through a community centre in orange jumpsuits. Alisha’s beautiful as ever, no matter what she says.

*

“He doesn’t age,” Simon says.

“No shit,” Alisha replies.

“I mean in his head. Emotionally. I think it’s part of it.”

“Nah, he’s always been like that,” Curtis says.

“Exactly. He’s never changed. With everything that’s happened, he should have changed. Even if it was just due to trauma. Look at how much he’s died.”

“Still fucks me up every time,” Kelly mutters. “But you’re right, nothing fazes him. Ever.”

“Why doesn’t it scare him?” Alisha asks quietly. “It scares me.”

“He’s fearless,” Curtis says. “Always been like that, too.”

“Teenagers never think they’re gonna die,” Kelly says. “He was immature when the storm hit. Then he was immortal. He doesn’t have to process death.”

“He’ll have to process ours,” Simon says quietly.

“God, this is fucking maudlin,” Nathan says, striding in from where he’d been listening outside the door. “I demand we change the mood. Orgy?” He points to Alisha, who smirks. “Yeahhh, that’s one.” Points to Kelly. “Orgy?” She smiles too. “Fantastic, now we’ve got a threesome. Boys? Will you do me the honour of making this an orgy? You know Kelly will wear down my nob like sandpaper on a wooden dildo if you don’t help.”

“Oi!” She shouts and throws the tv remote at his head.

And just like that the mood lifts again, like a packet on a stream caught briefly with an airbubble.

*

Simon dies suddenly a couple days short of sixty. Mown down while crossing the street on his way home from work. He was always so distracted. Never lived in the moment, mind was always miles away. Thoughts dwelling anywhere except in the scene in front of him.

Nathan sits with a bottle of vodka and the birthday cake that says ‘Birthday Barry’ on it, eating the icing with his bare hands late into the night until he’s throwing up in the kitchen bin. Kelly and Curtis have to help him to bed. Once upon a time either one of them could have managed him alone. They’re getting old. They’re all getting so fucking old.

Not him though. Not Simon either. Not anymore. 

They’re all just crying, all fucking crying curled up together in Alisha’s massive bed. He’s actually kind of glad they’re crying because he’d feel like a child if it was just him. 

The next day he gets over it. At least visibly. He tries to, anyway. He carries on with the chores – and how can they say he hasn’t matured when he’s willing to clean up after himself now? - and he casually mentions a few times that Barry is dead. Like exposure therapy. It makes Curtis storm out though and makes Alisha call him a prick.

Like the good old days, except Simon isn’t filming it. 

That evening Kelly finds him curled up in Simon’s bed and curls up with him. 

“Barry was gonna show me how to make fake IDs,” Nathan says. Years ago now. Decades ago, actually. Funny how time… yeah. His thoughts about time are a big swirly void that makes no sense. He tries not to look at it.

“We’ll figure somethin’ out,” Kelly reassures him. She’s always the big spoon when they cuddle. Her arms aren’t as strong around him as they used to be.

She sounds so sure, despite having barely any time at all. 

Nathan has all the time in the world, but no idea what to do with it. He had always assumed…

“No you didn’t,” Kelly says gently, listening to him think. “You ain’t stupid, Nathan. Nobody likes to think about it. And we got that. We weren’t ever gonna force you. But you’ve gotta start now. We can’t look after ya forever. Not even a fraction of it, probably.”

He turns into her embrace, burying his face against her chest. Her tits remind him more than anything that things aren’t what they once were. She whacks his head gently for that. 

“I want Barry back,” he whines, petulant. Nathan’s died so, so many times. It shouldn’t _mean_ anything. It’s not fair.

At a lawyer’s office a week later, they find out Simon had a will. Everything goes to Nathan, the lawyer reading the ominous message, “he’ll need it most”. 

Simon always had been a drama queen. But he includes passwords for his computer. When Nathan goes on it looking for porn, he finds a folder with his name on. In there, a folder full of videos and images (“not the porn I was imagining, but it’ll do”) and another folder called ‘immortality’. 

“Oh Barry. You thorough fuck.”

It doesn’t give him _answers_ as such. Simon would have said if he had located anything so interesting. But it gives resources. Step-by-step guides. Very long bucket lists. And a reminder to print out pictures.

‘Or you’ll forget what we all look like eventually.’

*

In the end Nathan is the only one Alisha really wants to see.

“I know it hurts the others, but...”

“Fuck ‘em,” Nathan says cheerfully. “You’re the one who’s poorly, what you say goes.”

She reaches out and squeezes his hand. Her skin looks so rough against his, even the manicure he’s given her does little to glamorise her. 

“You get how sick I am, yeah?” She didn’t want this to take him by surprise, not like Simon. Or his mum, who had been sick for ages before she went. He hadn’t fully cottoned on. Nathan wasn’t _stupid_, but there was definitely something a little… wrong. A wilful naivety of sorts. Simon used to call it a defence mechanism, Nathan’s brain refusing to start asking questions that would only make him miserable.

But Nathan squeezes her hand back and swallows. She can see in his face that he knows this time.

“Still wish we could do this at home,” he grumbles. “I could wear my naughty nurse outfit.”

Alisha laughs, but it turns into a painful cough that goes on until Nathan fumbles the little oxygen mask onto her face so that she can wheeze into it. 

“Kel’s quit smoking,” he says after a little while. “I’m only buying cigs for me now.”

“Makes sense,” Alisha croaks, pulling the mask back a little so he can hear her. “She’s seen how fucked my lungs are.”

“S’not going to make her immortal though, is it?” Nathan snaps. “We should just enjoy what we’ve got.”

“Yeah, because I’m having a great time,” she says sarcastically.

“Well if that’s how you feel, I’ll stop reading you ‘ten times ghosts sexually abused my neighbour’,” Nathan says, waving the magazine that he’s left on the bed.

“They just want to make sure you’re okay,” Alisha says. It’s difficult to talk, the coughing fit having roughed up her voice. “Kelly and Curtis, they both want to be with you as long as possible.”

None of them know what will happen to Nathan when they’re gone. He’s getting better, a little. He spends a lot of time looking over the things Simon left him on the computer. He tries to watch the news. He does more around the house now that they’re all getting too old and tired. He goes to hobby groups every so often, takes up a hobby, makes friends, gets bored, quits. Curtis once said Nathan was ‘like a moment yeah, but stuck. So he’s always in the moment, but never like, connects to other moments or the big picture’. 

In one way Alisha thinks it’s beautiful really. She admires his pretty, boyish looks as he reads to her. Someone like Nathan would have burned out fast in any other life. The embodiment of live fast, die young. The kind of person you’d remember with rose-tinted glasses later in life, who couldn’t really live like an adult. 

“Our Peter Pan,” she says fondly, interrupting him mid-sentence.

He stops, a little surprised. Then he smiles. “Never did develop the ability to fly. You my lost boys then?”

“Funny, innit… how he called them that. He always needed them more than they needed ‘im. You ask me, Peter Pan was the lost one.”

“Probably. Gets boring, playing on your own.”

“You ever see ‘Hook’?” Alisha asks, dragging the memory out from the mental basement. “Wendy gets old. Peter ends up with her daughter. Or… granddaughter? Don’t remember.”

“Sounds weird.”

“Was quite good, I think. I’m just saying… you don’t have to stay, y’know? You’re still young.”

Nathan frowns. “None of that now. I’m happy where I am. I know who my people are, yeah? Barry’d kick my head in from beyond the grave if I quit now.”

“But--”

“I love you,” he says. Firmly. Seriously. Very out of character. “All of you. And that’s… that’s a big deal for me, yeah? It’s the best thing I’ve ever had. I’m not just gonna… drop it. Just because you’re sick and Barry’s gone and Kel’s all haggard and Curtis is so fuckin’ confused all the--” His voice cracks, his eyes well up. “Oh now look, you’ve got me all fuckin’ weepy.” He wipes at his eyes with his sleeve. 

She grabs at his free hand. “Nath...”

“Yeah.” He lifts her hand to his lips and kisses it. “I’m here. Not going anywhere.”

And he means it literally, sitting in the chair by her bed for days. Doctors are clearly confused by the relation – Alisha doesn’t know what he’s told them. She finds it increasingly difficult to keep up with the details. 

The mask is on her face more and more.

She sleeps more and more.

Her chest feels so tight and painful.

Like she can barely get the air in. 

This isn’t their bedroom…

Nathan’s sitting by the bed instead of being in bed with her.

She’s in a hospital?

“Babe?” 

Was that ugly croak her voice?

“Hey love,” Nathan says with a smile. He kisses her forehead. “You with me again?”

“Where’s… others?”

“Kel and Curtis?” He asks.

“Yeah… n’Simon...”

“Just stepped out. I’ll call ‘em, though you know what Barry’s like with his work and all.”

He pulls his phone out and makes a call. “Hey, Alisha’s asking for you. Grab Curty and head over? She’s… no. Nah, I think… yeah. Yeah. Cool.”

Once the call’s done he takes her hands. “Need more drugs? Promise I’ll stop poaching them.”

“Nah… m’good.”

“You’re better than good,” Nathan says. “Always have been.”

“Come ‘ere,” she whispers. He gets onto the bed and cuddles up to her, head under her chin, curls soft against her neck and jaw. He feels so warm. Nathan always gives good cuddles. “Gonna be late,” she thinks aloud.

“For what?” Nathan asks, his voice brushing over her collarbone.

“Community service,” she reminds him.

Nathan makes a small whimper-like sound. She strokes his hair a little, though her hand feels numb and slow. 

“We don’t have to go,” she says. It’s hard to catch her breath. “We’ll just stay here.”

“Okay,” he says. “That sounds good.”

They’ll probably get in trouble, but when don’t they? She’s always loved being a little trouble with their Nathan. 

One of the others will wake them for breakfast, she knows.

It’s safe to sleep a little more.

*

“The space is there just in case,” Kelly says. 

Talking like it’s a new arrangement of furniture. So calm, so practical. Nathan looks again at the gravestones then away, blowing smoke up at the rain. 

“Nathan, you listenin’?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s important.”

“I said I’m listening, woman.”

He glares at her. She raises her eyebrows. “So what did I say?”

“There’s a space for you in the middle?”

Alisha and Simon are next to one another. Then there’s a patch of unspoiled grass before Curtis’ grave. It seemed profoundly ridiculous that Curtis, who had jogged every day, given up drinking, never smoked and ate healthy food, had died before Kelly. Kelly who still ate her own weight in junk food and drank like a sailor and stole Nathan’s cigs despite having ‘given up’ years ago. 

Not that there was any order Nathan would have preferred, of course. It all sucked balls no matter who went first. 

“No, you wanker, I said I’m on Curtis’ other side. Will you listen?”

“So why’s there a space in the middle? Don’t wanna cosy up after death? Worried about Barry’s clammy feet even now? It’ll be a bit hypocritical once you’ve gone cold too.”

“The space is for you.”

“But I don’t die.”

“Like I said, it’s just in case. Y’know, if you find a way. Or if something happens.”

Nathan vaguely remembers being buried alive once. He hadn’t enjoyed it, but beyond that he can’t really relate to the fear and panic of it. It feels like it happened to someone else. He thinks… he’s not sure what he’s thinking. They’re talking about things ending and he can’t really imagine it. The house already feels weird with just him and Kelly. He’s had to get a job because her pension’s not been cutting it. 

Okay, he’s had about five jobs now. He’s not very good at them. But the point is, he feels like he’s waiting for the others to get home. He’s gotten used to that. When Kelly’s not around anymore…

“We should find some way to make you immortal,” he says. He’s said it before many times but none of them ever gave him any credit for his suggestions.

Kelly sighs. “We never found any way we could do that. Besides… not sure I’d want it.”

“Charming.”

“It’s not about you, Nath. You know I love ya. But I’m old, yeah? I’m tired. Can’t open a bloody packet without my arthritis going off on one. Nearly had a heart attack having sex with ya the other day. Not to mention how stupid it looks, you at twenty-odd and me nearly ninety.”

“Come on, I’ve been sleeping with eighty-something-year-olds since we met.”

“Yeah and it freaked you out then.”

“I’ve matured.”

“No, you really haven’t.”

“I feel like I have. Anyway, you’re Kelly. You’re not just some random old biddy.”

“It really doesn’t bother ya? That we have to pretend you’re my grandson?”

Nathan throws his burned-down cig away to someone else’s grave. “Nope. I’ve told weirder lies.”

“I ain’t doing this forever, Nathan. I _can’t_. I don’t know how you can.”

“Me neither,” he admits with a shrug. “Don’t really have a choice though, do I?”

He lights a cig for her before taking hold of the handles of the wheelchair and wheeling her down the winding path with little ‘brum brum’ noises. Cries “get out the way, there’s a bomb on the chair that’ll blow if she goes under fifty miles an hour!” when some mourners cross their path. 

“That film’s well old now,” Kelly says once he’s slowed her down at the bus stop.

“You say that about everything.”

“’Cause everything’s well old now,” she says. “Except you.”

“What can I say?” He beams at her, drawing her pensioner’s bus pass out of her purse as the bus draws near. “You keep me young, darling.”

She manages two more years.

*

“Hello Nathan, I’m Sarah.”

The troubled lad, Nathan Bailey, doesn’t look up at her, but her greeting makes him frown at the table. “Sarah’s an old name, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s one of those names that never goes out of fashion,” she says, sitting down.

“Like smokey eye.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothin’.”

She sets the file down on the table and sighs. “We’re all sorry about your nan.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“But it’s been eight months,” she says gently.

“Eight months is fuck all,” he grumbles. “What’s eight months? Y’know, in the grand scheme of things. Fuck all.”

“It must seem that way. She raised you, didn’t she?”

He shrugs. There had been some serious paperwork mishaps on his first trip to the station months ago. His profile had come out as him being about ninety years old with the wrong surname. Nathan Bailey had been no help whatsoever, claiming his nan Kelly had always handled his documents and stuff. He seemed savvy and witty, but there was something not quite right with him. Some sort of undiagnosed… something. Sarah was no psychiatrist, though Nathan’s record indicated he’d been recommended for psychiatric evaluation in the past. 

So far they have all been fairly gentle with him. She knows what people think of the police, but they’re not total monsters. A young lad breaking into the church grounds to lay down with the grave of his nan and her friends… it had brought a couple of them to tears the first time. 

But it keeps happening and people have run out of empathy. Especially given he keeps throwing his empty vodka bottles around and leaving drug paraphernalia up there. One time they found him overdosed and thought for sure he was dead. To this day Sarah swears he had no pulse. But the hospital sent him back healthy as ever. 

“You could be doing a lot with your life,” Sarah tries again.

“You’ve got no idea,” Nathan says. 

“The terms of the ban mean you’re not allowed onto the church ground anymore.”

“That fuckface priest isn’t keeping me from my people,” Nathan snarls, still glaring at the table rather than her. 

“This isn’t healthy.”

“No shit, Sally.”

“Sarah.”

“Whatever.”

“Is this what your nan would have wanted for you?”

“Kelly. Her name was Kelly. Stop callin’ her my ‘nan’. She was Kelly Bailey and she was fierce as fuck, same as Curtis and Alisha and Barry.”

“Who’s Barry?” The other names she recognises from the graves. Lifelong friends of Mrs Bailey. It makes Sarah wonder if they all had a hand in raising Nathan, a sort of polyamorous arrangement. It wouldn’t be appropriate to ask.

“Simon.”

“Oh. Right. Well, that makes sense...”

“Was a nickname.”

“Nathan, you need to understand that you can’t keep doing this. We can’t just let you go with a rap on the knuckles this time.”

Finally she has his attention. She wonders if he’s still intoxicated – he seems distant. “No?” He asks. “What now then? Gonna lock me away? It’d have to be a good, long time to make an impression...”

“Community service has been suggested as an appropriate measure.”

Nathan starts laughing. He laughs and laughs until Sarah’s begging him to calm down.

*

Time goes by. Nathan ignores it, mostly. Him and Time live very different lives. If nothing else it lets him be an awesome procrastinator. Why do today what you can do in a few years?

He learns to cook and feels shitty that he didn’t do so earlier. Dinners this delicious should have been shared with the people who looked after him. 

Nobody kicks off if he behaves himself at the graveyard so he still drifts by to have a chat with the cold stones that bear the names of the people who loved him. They even put in a bench nearby eventually, so he can sit down while having a good natter. He likes to dish the dirty on his dates to Alisha, knowing Simon would be scandalised at the same time. 

Eventually the priest starts accusing him of being a vampire – something to do with him not ageing a day in a couple decades – and actually tries to stake him. Problem with that of course is that stakes work on living people too. The fucker hides him in one of the mausoleums. Just as well really, given nobody would look for him if he were buried alive.

Nobody.

His relationships never last. Few people have the patience for his personality. He makes more enemies than friends.

At one point he annoys some bastard who burns his house down in retaliation. Not much really hurts Nathan these days but when he thinks of Barry’s barely-functional computer and Alisha’s fraying old dresses and Curtis’ fading certificates and Kelly’s old photos…

Well. It’s been a while since he killed. 

Blood on his hands, he gives some thought to becoming an immortal serial killer, like something out of a comic book.

Doesn’t fancy the effort.

Still, the stuff the storm brought never goes away. The news says it got into the genetics, something like the X-Men, another reference that shows his age though it had a good run as franchises go. 

There are more super-powered people now than ever. Nathan mostly avoids them. He hasn’t heard of anyone coming forward with immortality and doesn’t want to be the first. Simon had been pretty clear on that in his notes. He could end up donated against his consent to medical science.

So much in Simon’s notes slips his mind now. He wishes he’d made copies. It had been hard keeping the computer going with all the new tech, he’s never been a whiz with that stuff. He’d thought about writing it all down years before, but it seemed like such a boring task. Now the opportunity’s gone. So many opportunities gone, but it does nothing to galvanise him.

“Maybe I should reinvent myself,” he says to their graves. “Be like one of those Sims… you remember that game? I could be like, right, this time I’ll be a firefighter. Then I’ll go get a new name and life and be like, I’m going to learn chess now. Maybe not chess. Chess is boring. Hockey? Nah. I suppose I could move too, go live in France for a while or something...”

He doesn’t end up doing much of anything. He gets by. He knows better than to linger at any one job or hobby. People ask questions. Playing dumb deals with them until he’s moved onto something else. 

“Do I disappoint you?” He asks the graves one night.

Gets no response.

“I think I’m lonely,” he says, trying the words on for size. They fit disturbingly well. “Yeah. I probably am. I miss you lot.”

One day he gets home from his cleaning job to find someone has posted an old photo under his door. It’s him and the gang from so, so many years ago. An old newspaper with an article on community work for young offenders. There he is with his arm around Barry, there’s Alisha thrusting her chest out for the camera, Curtis trying to avoid being captured on film, Kelly glaring daggers at the photographer like she’s about to headbutt them…

The fact that someone’s written **THIS IS YOU** over it in marker pen is more annoying than anything. He folds the picture up neatly and puts it in his pocket.

A couple days later there’s someone waiting outside his front door when he gets home. A rough-looking young woman in dirty clothes.

“Don’t have any change, sorry,” he says, going for his keys. A trained response that doesn’t even make sense now that they’ve moved away from physical currency. Ah well. Old habits.

“That photo was you,” she responds in a gravelly voice.

Nathan blinks. He’s found his stalker then. “Oh no, that was my great-great-grandad Nathan Young. Great-great-great, maybe? God, maybe more, what year is it? Never mind. Point is, I’m Nathan Daniels.”

“That’s not how names work,” she rasps. “That photo was you.”

“Can’t be. That was early two-thousands. I’d be _so_ old.”

She stands, looking like an angry scarecrow in her oversized coat with her twig-like bare legs. “That photo was you. You are old. Old and full of memory.”

“Um… I don’t suppose someone in your family tree was caught in a weird storm?” Nathan asks. 

He steps back but she lunges for him. As soon as her hands touch his face he’s swarmed by thoughts of over a hundred years.

_Wild parties, broken home, teenage rebellion, community service, chav with a heart of gold, melonfucker looks like a handsome shark, Curtis star of the track team and a fine fuck when you wear him down, beautiful Alisha, the storm, the powers, the murders, the secrets, the house, the cuddles, the kisses, the sex sex sex, take out dinners and terrible telly, clubbing, drugs, stalkers, shapeshifters, home sweet home, guess what mum my girlfriend’s a model, my boyfriend’s an athlete, Alisha’s cough is getting worse, Barry’s gone, that’s so unfair, Curtis seems so confused these days, how can my mum be dead already, Alisha please wake up, Kelly don’t go, I can’t do this on my own, I need more than your names on slabs of stone, community service again, new friends, nobody stays, new hobbies, everything’s boring after a while, new jobs, new names to learn and I always forget them, new shags, nobody knows I’m over a century old, would they fuck me if they did, I must be the last person still listening to Prodigy, I go in the middle right, a space reserved for Peter Pan if he ever fucking grows up, it’s like a punishment, I can’t get into my space in the middle until I’ve grown the fuck up and I don’t know how I wish someone could tell me how--_

The woman falls away with a scream. Nathan falls back gasping. The woman’s laying unmoving on the floor. What the fuck just happened?

Not knowing what to do, he calls an ambulance. She’s pretty obviously dead though. He doesn’t know why. When the paramedics ask him, he doesn’t know what to say. They ask to take his name.

“Nathan.”

“Your full name.”

“Uh… shit.” He wants to say… Bellamy? No. That’s not right. Fuck. 

What’s his name?

They insist on checking him over, but they let him go without finding anything wrong. They say the police might be in touch about the woman, depending.

Nathan heads home. After such a weird night it’d be nice to have someone to go home to, but of course his house is empty. Putting his coat up on the peg he finds something crumpled in the pocket.

A picture. It looks like him, but he doesn’t recognise the others in it. Plus it was taken in two-thousand-and-nine according to the caption. He’s not _that_ old.

*

Nigel’s fairly new to the area, but he’s getting stuck in with his work at the church. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, especially the graveyard. Keeps him busy.

There’s a young man who walks past on his way home most days. He normally stops at the bench and has a sit down, staring at the ‘four friends’, as they call them. He always has such a ponderous look for such a young face, thinking of the mysteries of life that man must face.

“You alright?” Nigel asks on the occasion his weeding brings him near the lad’s seat.

“Yeah, just thinking. These are set up as a four, right? So why’d they leave a space? Were they two couples?”

“No, they earmarked the space between for a fifth grave, according to the records,” Nigel explains. “They’re waiting for someone.”

“Oh.” The man stubs out his cigarette on the arm of the bench. Thinks a little more. “Must be nice.”

Then he walks off home. 

Alone.


End file.
